First Global Credit Stock News Roundup – 17th December

Share:

The latest news round up for trade-able items on the First Global Credit platform, covering:

Amazon.com

Bitcoin

Clovis Oncology

Gold

Macquarie Infrastructure

Microsoft

Netflix

Oracle

Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Amazon.com’s stock had its “strong-buy” rating reaffirmed by Raymond James in a report issued on Wednesday.

A number of hedge funds and institutional investors recently added to or reduced their stakes in AMZN. Perigon Wealth Management raised its position in Amazon.com by 1.5% in the third quarter. Perigon Wealth Management now owns 5,371 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $2,749,000 after buying an additional 81 shares during the period. Northcoast Asset Management bought a new position in Amazon.com during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,572,000. Terra Nova Asset Management raised its position in Amazon.com by 101.3% in the third quarter. Terra Nova Asset Management now owns 6,272 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $3,211,000 after buying an additional 3,156 shares during the period. ING Groep raised its position in Amazon.com by 130.5% in the third quarter. ING Groep now owns 37,666 shares of the e-commerce giant’s stock valued at $19,274,000 after buying an additional 21,325 shares during the period. Finally, Meag Munich Ergo Kapitalanlagegesellschaft bought a new position in Amazon.com during the third quarter valued at approximately $11,705,000.

Amazon.com traded up 2.60% during trading on Wednesday, reaching $675.77. 3,956,441 shares of the company traded hands. Amazon.com has a 52 week low of $285.25 and a 52 week high of $684.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $316.77 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 968.15. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $655.98 and its 200 day moving average price is $538.30.

Several major companies from across both the technology and financial industries—including IBM, Intel, and Cisco as well as the London Stock Exchange Group and big-name banks JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and State Street—have joined forces to create an alternative to the blockchain, the global online ledger that underpins the bitcoin digital currency.

Overseen by the not-for-profit Linux Foundation, this open source project aims to build blockchain-like technology that can bring a new level of automation and transparency to a wide range of services in the business world, including stock exchanges and other financial markets.

“The current blockchain is a great design pattern,” says Jerry Cuomo, vice president and chief technology officer of IBM’s software group. “Now, how do we make that real for business? What are the key attributes needed to make that happen? That’s what this organization is about.”

Dubbed the Open Ledger Project, this effort is a re-imagining of several big ideas. The blockchain is essentially a database that runs across a worldwide network of independent machines—a database that’s controlled by no single entity but can still reliably track the exchange of assets, thanks to some nifty mathematics. With bitcoin, the blockchain tracks the exchange of money. But it can also track the exchange of anything else that carries value—including stocks, bonds, and other financial securities, as well as assets like houses and car titles. And in recent months, several projects have seized on many of these possibilities.

Clovis Oncology Inc’s share price rose 4.4% during trading on Tuesday. The stock traded as high as $33.30 and last traded at $32.52, with a volume of 716,170 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $31.15.

CLVS has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $42.00 price target (down previously from $110.00) on shares of Clovis Oncology in a research report on Tuesday, November 17th. Piper Jaffray lowered their price target on Clovis Oncology from $92.00 to $28.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, November 16th. Mizuho reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $103.00 price target on shares of Clovis Oncology in a research report on Tuesday, September 8th. WallachBeth Capital lifted their price target on Clovis Oncology from $115.00 to $134.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 10th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $45.00 price target (down previously from $140.00) on shares of Clovis Oncology in a research report on Monday, November 16th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Clovis Oncology currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $42.86.

The firm’s market capitalization is $1.28 billion. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $59.02 and a 200 day moving average price of $80.57.

Gold slipped on Thursday to give back some of its overnight gains, with trading choppy as the dollar surged after the Federal Reserve hiked U.S. interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.

The U.S. central bank raised the range of its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, ending a lengthy debate about whether the economy was strong enough to withstand higher borrowing costs.

Gold has slumped nearly 10 percent this year, largely on uncertainty around the timing of the rate rise and on fears that higher rates would hit demand for the non-interest-paying metal. It had fallen to a near-six-year low earlier this month.

Spot gold had dipped 0.6 percent to $1,066.20 an ounce by 0609 GMT. The metal had rallied before the Fed decision on Wednesday and managed to hold most of those gains after the central bank statement, ending the day up 1.2 percent.

U.S. gold fell 1 percent to a session low of $1,064.20, following a 1.4 percent gain in the previous session. “This morning, it is more of a dollar story,” said a Hong Kong-based precious metals trader. “The market pretty much expected the comments we heard from the Fed,” the trader said, adding that the most-likely move for gold was to go lower.

The dollar index, which measures its strength against a basket of six major currencies, rose 1 percent on Thursday. A robust dollar makes greenback-denominated gold more expensive for holders of other currencies.

Other precious metals also took a hit from a stronger dollar. Palladium fell nearly 3 percent to a session low of $552.22 an ounce, while silver and platinum dropped about 1 percent each.

With the much anticipated first rate hike out of the way, the focus now shifts to the pace of future rate increases. The U.S. central bank made clear the rate hike was a tentative beginning to a “gradual” tightening cycle. But the rate forecasts, or dot points, from Fed members were a little higher than many expected with 100 basis points of hikes pencilled in for next year and a terminal rate of 3.5 percent.

The divergence between the Fed forecasts and the market could hurt gold prices as investors begin to align their views with the central bank.

Shares of Macquarie Infrastructure Company LLC (NYSE:MIC) have earned a consensus rating of “Buy” from the seven brokerages that are presently covering the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold recommendation and six have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $96.25.

In other Macquarie Infrastructure Company news, Director George W. Carmany III sold 10,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.92, for a total value of $769,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 42,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,242,101.08.

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Macquarie Infrastructure Company stock. Terra Nova Asset Management raised its stake in shares of Macquarie Infrastructure Company LLC (NYSE:MIC) by 11.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 37,482 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 3,907 shares during the period. Macquarie Infrastructure Company accounts for approximately 2.5% of Terra Nova Asset Management’s portfolio, making the stock its 5th largest position. Terra Nova Asset Management’s holdings in Macquarie Infrastructure Company were worth $2,798,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Buy Rating Reiterated at Deutsche Bank; With $65.0 Target. Deutsche Bank’s target would suggest a potential upside of 17.75 % from the company’s stock close price. This was revealed to clients and investors in a report on Wednesday morning.

Microsoft is now trading 1.68% higher at $56.13 as of 11:22 New York time. Microsoft’s stock is up 29.22% over the past 200 days. It has outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which has dropped -3.05% over the same time period.

According to data compiled by Thomson Reuters, Microsoft’s stock is covered by 31 equity analysts across the Street, with 4 analysts giving it a Sell rating, 20 a Buy rating, while 10 consider it a Hold. The 12-month consensus target price for the stock is $56.45, which reflects an upside potential of 0.57% over the current price.

Vetr upgraded shares of Netflix, Inc. from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Thursday morning. They currently have $128.93 price objective on the Internet television network’s stock.

Shares of Netflix traded up 3.41% during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $122.64. The stock had a trading volume of 13,148,075 shares. The firm has a market cap of $52.41 billion and a PE ratio of 326.17. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $117.53 and a 200 day moving average of $107.46. Netflix has a 12-month low of $45.08 and a 12-month high of $133.27.

Netflix last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, October 14th. The Internet television network reported $0.07 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.08 by $0.01. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.14 EPS. The firm earned $1.74 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.75 billion. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 23.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Netflix will post $0.20 earnings per share for the current year.

Business software maker Oracle Corp on Wednesday delivered a third-quarter profit forecast that did not quite meet analysts’ expectations, and the company’s shares fell about 1 percent in extended trading.

Oracle forecast third-quarter profit of about 63-66 cents per share, with revenue flat or up 3 percent which translates to US$9.33 billion-US$9.61 billion. The company’s shift from licensing software to cloud-based subscriptions has squeezed its margins.

Analysts on average were expecting profit of 65 cents per share on revenue of US$9.28 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

“This is a softer outlook than the Street was expecting and speaks to the massive growth challenges ahead,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said.

Oracle, like other established technology companies, has been moving its business to the cloud-based model, essentially providing services remotely via data centers rather than selling installed software.

In the second quarter ended Nov. 30, revenue from the company’s cloud-computing software and platform service rose 34 percent to US$484 million.

Total revenue fell 6.3 percent to US$8.99 billion, missing analysts average estimate of US$9.06 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Oracle’s second-quarter net income fell to US$2.2 billion, or 51 cents per share, from US$2.5 billion, or 56 cents per share, a year earlier.

Trading cryptocurrency, currency, equities and ETFs is potentially risky. You should proceed with caution before trading on the site. By using the Panxora website and/or platforms, you represent that you understand the risk associated with trading cryptocurrencies and global markets. Panxora trades global securities, including US stocks. The company does not have a presence in the United States and are not a US Regulated Broker Dealer. We currently do not accept traders residing in the United States of America. Traders residing within the EU are not permitted to trade stock or ETF products.